A hard lesson is coming

It is one of the great mysteries of modern British politics: how public schools managed to survive three periods of Labour government with their tax breaks intact. How was it that an education secretary, Anthony Crosland, could say: ‘If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England, and Wales and Northern Ireland’, and yet do nothing to make life difficult for independent schools? Suzi Leather, Tony Blair’s appointment as head of the Charity Commission, demanded private schools do more to justify their charitable status. They upped their bursaries a bit and invited state schools to use their swimming pools every so often, but were otherwise allowed to carry on avoiding VAT and being let off much of their business rates bill.

Yet could it now be a Conservative government which finally sends the taxman round for a slice of St Cake’s? Michael Gove, of course, is no longer education secretary, nor even in the government.